Waiting for the Phoenix
by GenesisDaughter
Summary: If you read Writer for the Tylwyth Teg's Story "My Little Phoenix", this is the story of what happened to Astrid while Hiccup was away (kidnapped by pirates) for four months. If you haven't read her story, then I would seriously suggest you do. Anyways, hope you like it!


Astrid Hofferson awoke suddenly from a fitful sleep to footsteps on the floor above her. Not that footsteps weren't a normal occurrence on this dreary boat, but these weren't just the clanking feet of one restless Viking wandering the deck. This was the unnerving sound of many boots smashing against the floor in what could only be a fight. Sitting up in the painfully uncomfortable bunk, Astrid tried to make sense of why there would be so many people up in the middle of the night.

"The tired girl grabbed her boots and pulled them on. Childhood stories of Pirates attacking the Viking ships filled her mind, but she never exactly pictured it happening on a ship she was on in the middle of the night. The scene that awaited her when she arrived on the main deck was almost nauseating. She could see Pirates everywhere, but more than that she could see the bruised and bloody army of Vikings that fought them. The Ship had been completely ransacked and every viking was fighting to keep their last shred of dignity.

"Except of course Astrid; people often left her out of vicious fights such as these. Forget that she could take down half of Rome with one throw of her axe, it all came back to her being a 'fragile young woman' as her mother had put it. She put her wandering thoughts behind her for the moment and took in the commotion in front of her. There had to be 50 pirates and only 14 or 15 of them. Stoick and Astrid's own fathers were disarming one pirate after another, but there were far too many for all of them to make it out alive. Then it hit Astrid that Hiccup was on this stupid boat with her and she began frantically searching the deck for him. She found him on the far end of the deck trying to push a man twice the size of him off of his body. _Great,_ she thought. She did not want to deal with this right now. This was the exact opposite of what she needed after a six week long trading journey. She just wanted to curl up and hibernate. Not to mention in her frantic attempt to run up to the main deck, she hadn't thought to grab her axe. So now she was stranded on a deck full of filthy pirates, weaponless.

"Hiccup!" she yelled to no avail. There was far too much going on for him to hear her. All that did was draw attention towards her. She ran towards him when a large hand grabbed her from behind and held her up by the neck like she was nothing more than road.

"Look at this one here", the man holding her yelled at who she assumed to be the captain. "She'd make us a pretty penny!" Then he turned to Stoick "How about you just hand over a couple of pretty wenches like this one here and we'll leave you alone, sound like a fair deal?"

"Absolutely not!" Stoick boomed, "Take what you want of our goods, but let her go free!" Of course we were back to that fragile young woman thing."The man's greasy hands released Astrid's neck and he moved towards Stoick. "You really want to continue with this blood battle?" He sneered through gritted teeth, "it just means we'll just have to kill you all instead of trading up for a few measly, useless whores. It doesn't make much of a difference to us, I guess." The Pirates drew their swords to attack.

"Wait!" Hiccup yelled. Astrid spun around, praying he wouldn't do anything stupid. "You say you'll stop the fighting if you have a hostage?" The Pirate captain looked at him quizzically.

"Yeah, what are you going to do about that?"

"I'll go. Take me as your hostage." The captain looked at him, slightly dumbfounded that a Viking was surrendering to him.

"You sure?", he finally asked. "You'll never see any of these people again, you know. I'll make sure of it."

Astrid stared into the eyes of the boy she loved, silently pleading him to stay. "I'm sure."

"Very well!" The captains voice echoed and his crew leapt into action, shackling hiccup and dragging him away.

Astrid stared for a second before her feet took off to run back after him. Unfortunately she didn't get far before Stoick and her father were holding her arms with more effort than it should take to restrain a twenty year old girl. She screamed across the deck, "Hiccup, please…!" She begged, "Please don't do this…I'll kill myself! I will you idiot!" tears began to fall down her face. Stoick knew it was no use pleading with Hiccup or Astrid. Hiccup would drown himself if it meant saving another's life, and Astrid would probably jump in after him if she knew it was the only way she would be with him.  
"No!" She sobbed as she fought to break free of the men holding her arms. But it was no use anyway, the pirate ship was already gone, taking with it her will to live.


End file.
